Frozen light in periodic metamaterials

Wave propagation in spatially periodic media, such as photonic crystals, can be qualitatively different from any uniform substance. The differences are particularly pronounced when the electromagnetic wavelength is comparable to the primitive translation of the periodic structure. In such a case, the periodic medium cannot be assigned any meaningful refractive index. Still, such features as negative refraction and/or opposite phase and group velocities for certain directions of light propagation can be found in almost any photonic crystal. The only reservation is that unlike hypothetical uniform left-handed media, photonic crystals are essentially anisotropic at frequency range of interest. Consider now a plane wave incident on a semi-infinite photonic crystal. One can assume, for instance, that in the case of positive refraction, the normal components of the group and the phase velocities of the transmitted Bloch wave have the same sign, while in the case of negative refraction, those components have opposite signs. What happens if the normal component of the transmitted wave group velocity vanishes? Let us call it a "zero-refraction" case. At first sight, zero normal component of the transmitted wave group velocity implies total reflection of the incident wave. But we demonstrate that total reflection is not the only possibility. Instead, the transmitted wave can appear in the form of an abnormal grazing mode with huge amplitude and nearly tangential group velocity. This spectacular phenomenon is extremely sensitive to the frequency and direction of propagation of the incident plane wave. These features can be very attractive in numerous applications, such as higher harmonic generation and wave mixing, light amplification and lasing, highly efficient superprizms, etc

Unidirectional Lasing Emerging from Frozen Light in Non-Reciprocal Cavities

We introduce a class of unidirectional lasing modes associated with the frozen mode regime of non-reciprocal slow-wave structures. Such asymmetric modes can only exist in cavities with broken time-reversal and space inversion symmetries. Their lasing frequency coincides with a spectral stationary inflection point of the underlying passive structure and is virtually independent of its size. These unidirectional lasers can be indispensable components of photonic integrated circuitry.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Absorption suppression in photonic crystals

We study electromagnetic properties of periodic composite structures, such as photonic crystals, involving lossy components. We show that in many cases a properly designed periodic structure can dramatically suppress the losses associated with the absorptive component, while preserving or even enhancing its useful functionality. As an example, we consider magnetic photonic crystals, in which the lossy magnetic component provides nonreciprocal Faraday rotation. We show that the electromagnetic losses in the composite structure can be reduced by up to two orders of magnitude, compared to those of the uniform magnetic sample made of the same lossy magnetic material. Importantly, the dramatic absorption reduction is not a resonance effect and occurs over a broad frequency range covering a significant portion of photonic frequency band

Waveguide photonic limiters based on topologically protected resonant modes

We propose a concept of chiral photonic limiters utilising topologically protected localised midgap defect states in a photonic waveguide. The chiral symmetry alleviates the effects of structural imperfections and guaranties a high level of resonant transmission for low intensity radiation. At high intensity, the light-induced absorption can suppress the localised modes, along with the resonant transmission. In this case the entire photonic structure becomes highly reflective within a broad frequency range, thus increasing dramatically the damage threshold of the limiter. Here we demonstrate experimentally the principle of operation of such photonic structures using a waveguide consisting of coupled dielectric microwave resonators.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Frozen light in periodic stacks of anisotropic layers

We consider a plane electromagnetic wave incident on a periodic stack of dielectric layers. One of the alternating layers has an anisotropic refractive index with an oblique orientation of the principal axis relative to the normal to the layers. It was shown recently (A. Figotin and I. Vitebskiy, Phys. Rev. E68, 036609 2003) that an obliquely incident light, upon entering such a periodic stack, can be converted into an abnormal axially frozen mode with drastically enhanced amplitude and zero normal component of the group velocity. The stack reflectivity at this point can be very low, implying nearly total conversion of the incident light into the frozen mode with huge energy density, compared to that of the incident light. Supposedly, the frozen mode regime requires strong birefringence in the anisotropic layers - by an order of magnitude stronger than that available in common anisotropic dielectric materials. In this paper we show how to overcome the above problem by exploiting higher frequency bands of the photonic spectrum. We prove that a robust frozen mode regime at optical wavelengths can be realized in stacks composed of common anisotropic materials, such as YVO₄, LiNb, CaCO₃, and the like.Comment: to be submitted to Phys. Rev.

Light-induced optical switching in an asymmetric metal-dielectric microcavity with phase-change material

We propose an infrared power switch based on an asymmetric high-Q microcavity incorporating a metallic nanolayer in close proximity to a layer made of a phase-change material (PCM). The microcavity is designed so that when the PCM layer is in the low-temperature phase, the metallic nanolayer coincides with a nodal plane of the resonant electric field component, to allow a high resonant transmittance. As the light intensity exceeds a certain threshold, light-induced heating of the PCM layer triggers the phase transition accompanied by an abrupt change in its refractive index in the vicinity of the transition temperature. The latter results in a shift of the nodal plane away from the metallic nanolayer, rendering the entire microcavity highly reflective over a broad frequency range. The nearly binary nature of the PCM refractive index allows for the low-intensity resonant transmission over a broad range of ambient temperatures below the transition point.Comment: 5 EPL pages, 4 figure